End credits roll on second Cornfed Film Fest

The festival wrapped up on Sunday afternoon with a closing reception and awards presentation at the West Central Illinois Arts Center.

The three-day fest included screenings of 23 student, short and feature-length films at venue around the courthouse square. Nancy Crossman, one of the organizers of the event, said attendance at this year's Cornfed was about on par with last year's.

"It was probably not as good as we would have liked, but it wasn't bad," she said. "Our attendance is probably very close to last year, maybe a little bit more, and that's great. We hope that next year we have even more."

Documentaries received several awards Sunday. The Best of the Fest award went to filmmakers Markus Zetler and Justin Lubke for "Class C: The Only Game in Town," about a girls basketball state championship game in Montana.

Chip Gubera's documentary "Joplin, Missouri," has been on the festival circuit for a year and won Cornfed's Best Feature-length prize.

Gubera, an IT instructor at the University of Missouri, said the film was a personal labor of love that reflects how the people of Joplin came together in the aftermath of a deadly May 22, 2011, tornado.

"It's a personal story for me because I'm from Joplin and my whole family still lives in Joplin, so it was kind of a labor of love to make and to try and get their story right," he said after accepting his award. "A lot of the national media that came in really didn't get the story correct. They were really going for sensationalism; I was trying to get like a real honest, positive story for my hometown."

As "Joplin" has traveled the film festival circuit, the film has gone in directions Gubera didn't expect.

"Kind of the weird life that it's taken on its own is that it's turned into a training film," he said. "The Army Corps of Engineers uses it as a training film. There's a lot of church groups that use it as a training film just to see how emergency management responses respond to disasters."

A third documentary, Peter McBride's "Chasing Water," took the Cornfed prize for Best Short Film. "Chasing Water" follows photographer McBride and his bush pilot father as they journey down the Colorado River.

This year's festival focused on independent filmmakers as well as students just starting to learn the craft. Macomb native Adam Kozlowski's "Wins A Lot" received the "Homegrown" prize, award to a local filmmaker. "Wins A Lot" is the story of two Internet friends who meet in person for the first time.

Kozlowski's mother, Marsha, accepted on behalf of her son. She said Adam, a Macomb High School graduate, has been a professional actor in Las Vegas, Nev., for several years and is currently in rehearsals for play.

"Wins A Lot" was filmed Las Vegas, and while Marsha Kozlowski wasn't there, she said her son learned something about the struggles independent filmmakers face.

"I know he had some location problems because it's not a big company that anybody's heard of," she said. "When Bruce Willis is making a movie, the city they're making it in cooperates. When it's small independents, no. They don't even know somebody is making a movie."

Plymouth teens Austin Thompson, 19, won the award for Best Student Film. He said his short film "Blue Dawn" was inspired by a History Channel show, "Doomsday Prophecy."

"I've sort of made a few others, but this is the first time I've submitted anywhere," he said. "It's a concept that one of my friends came up with last year while we were still in high school. It's kind of a silly inspiration. We were watching a show on the History Channel and someone said, 'You should write a post-apocalyptic movie.'"

Thompson also directed the film and edited it. His friends served as actors and assistants.

Thompson said he plans to study film at Western Illinois University.

"I'm planning on making a few films, including a documentary, this summer," he said. "I hope to go into the film industry, in some way, eventually, when I get out of college."

Nancy Crossman hinted the Cornfed Film Fest could turn into a trilogy and possibly a continuing series.

"I would say yes, it will be happening next year," she said. "But we haven't set dates yet."

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